Frozen Reflections
by Akasha Demon Queen
Summary: WARNING: Ryousuke x Keisuke. Contains consensual incest. A stylistic piece detailing the developing relationship between the Takahashi brothers as seen through the eyes of another. IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THIS PAIRING, PLEASE DON'T READ THIS!


_**Quick warning** – this is a stylistic experiment. A while back, I saw a 'snapshot' fic – one based around the concept of exploring a single moment, frozen in time. I wanted to see if I could string a whole bunch of those together and create a story from them, but one told in the background… as something seen vicariously, as it would be for an outside figure viewing it from a photograph.  
  
For this reason, I chose Hisako, who some of you (the really pathetic ones who've actually **read** and **remembered** my other stuff) may remember from Transcendence Suspended. She's not quite so close-minded in this one, though. Much softer.  
  
Which brings me to my second warning: this is a story about Ryousuke and Keisuke. As anyone who has read any of my other work will know, I **only** write those two as lovers. This means **YAOI AND INCEST, **people. If you can't handle that, please leave.  
  
Flames are pointless and abusive wastes of valuable writing time… if you have a problem with my fics, GO OUT AND WRITE SOMETHING BETTER!!!!!!!!!!

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**_Frozen Reflections  
PG-13 (for lime and previous warnings)  
by Akasha_**

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_Hisako wasn't entirely certain what had prompted her to take out the family photo albums this particular night. It was probably a combination of factors: her husband was working late at the surgery, her elder son was out making the most of – in Keisuke's words – his last year of freedom, and was busily encouraging other foolish young men to take their lives into their hands on the narrow mountain roads near their home. Bad enough that he'd corrupted his brother…  
  
On the subject of her baby – Hisako hadn't seen him since he'd bounded down the stairs at seven that morning (unforgivably cheerful for such an ungodly hour), kissed his flustered mother on the cheek, and dashed unceremoniously out the door without any breakfast. It was this, more than anything else, which had her thumbing the well-worn album pages tonight.  
  
Despite the fact that Ryousuke was the family's pride and joy, a credit to the Takahashi name, and a paragon of responsibility (except for his unfortunate racing habit), Keisuke was Hisako's favourite. Blatantly so, in fact.  
  
Ryousuke didn't mind. He was arguably the one person who adored Keisuke more than his mother did.  
  
Decisively, Hisako set aside the other albums and picked up a small, brown leather-bound book, which held her most treasured mementos. All of these photographs were of her sons, pictured together at various moments – conscious or otherwise, significant or no; her fingers traced over them lovingly, skimming over some, lingering on others.  
  
They stopped entirely as she reached a photograph of a four-year-old Ryousuke sleeping curled around his otouto, who was balled up with his thumb in his mouth.  
  
Hisako and Sousuke had been prepared for many things at the birth of their second son: they had expected jealousy, rivalry and resentment, feelings of inadequacy from either or both boys, even for outright violence. It was what they had been led to believe was normal. They had not been prepared for Ryousuke's fierce protectiveness, Keisuke's absolute worship of his aniki or for their silent devotion to one another.  
  
She could count the number of times they'd actually fought on one hand, and such arguments invariably ended up with one or both of them in tears, quietly pleading for forgiveness. They were spectacular to watch, however. Ryousuke's stubbornness and Keisuke's volatile temper were not a good combination.  
  
Ryousuke had actually struck his otouto once, about two years ago. The noise had brought Hisako and Sousuke running, and they'd found them in horrified tableau in the hallway, Keisuke's cheek slowly turning red as Ryousuke stared at his hand as though he'd never seen it before. They had both looked as if they were about to be sick.  
  
As she and Sousuke had watched, uncertain whether or not to intervene, Ryousuke's face had crumpled in on itself and he sank to his knees in tears, mumbling over and over, _"Gomen. Gomen nasai."_ Keisuke had remained immobile for a few agonising seconds, then had gone to his aniki and wrapped him into an embrace. Hisako wasn't sure who had been more disturbed by the experience, her children or she herself. In some ways, it was more upsetting when Ryousuke and Keisuke fought than when she and her husband did.  
  
She shook herself out of her contemplations and returned to paging through the worn album.  
  
The next photograph she paused over was one of her sons and their cousin. Souichirou was much older than her boys – at the time of the picture's taking he had been nineteen; Ryousuke was eight and Keisuke barely six – and had just been given a new car as a graduation present. He was perched on it's hood with his arm looped around Ryousuke, who had Keisuke sandwiched between his legs.  
  
(He'd been going through an "I-don't-want-to-have-my-picture-taken" phase, much to his mother's chagrin.)  
  
Both of her boys had been fascinated by the black sports car. She could still hear their excited chatter…  
  
_"When I grow up, I'm going to be a professional driver! I'll work really hard and be the best in __Japan__! In the whole world!"  
  
"Ne, aniki, can I be a pro-profeshunal driver too? Even if I can't be the best…?"  
  
"'Course you can! I'll help you – then we can **both** be the best!"_  
  
There were days she wanted to smack her nephew for corrupting her babies. Every time Keisuke tore out of the driveway in that blasted yellow monstrosity she wondered whether she'd see him again; Ryousuke wasn't much of an improvement, truth be told.  
  
The next photograph was of Ryousuke at thirteen, dressed in his school uniform before an awards night. He'd won an academic award, and had perfect marks in the majority of his classes. Keisuke was standing at the edge of the frame, looking as if he wanted to be somewhere – anywhere – else. It had been a difficult couple of years for him: he had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, and was horribly insecure about it.  
  
Looking at him now, no one would ever guess that he'd once tried to burn all of his textbooks in a fit of rage at his 'stupidity', then cried himself to sleep every night for a week.  
  
Ryousuke had helped him more than anyone else, largely by refusing to put up with his histrionics. Keisuke wasn't stupid and they both knew it – and Ryousuke wasn't afraid to tell him so, quite sharply.  
  
The next photograph her fingers halted over was taken three or four years later – sometime during Ryousuke's last year of school. Hisako knew this automatically because the picture was a result of Ryousuke's unhealthy obsession with his laptop. During that year, her sons had developed a habit which they perpetuated even now.  
  
Ryousuke would work himself into exhaustion – either on his studies or on his cursed racing schematics – at about 2 am, whereupon Keisuke would leave whatever he was doing and wander into his aniki's room. Once there, he would either usher Ryousuke into bed immediately – or, should his aniki prove stubborn, hang around being generally irritating until Ryousuke did what he was told out of sheer frustration.  
  
At other times, Ryousuke would ask for his opinion on something, and one thing would inevitably lead to another until they were seated on his bed involved in complicated discussion. Invariably they fell asleep curled together on Ryousuke's bed.  
  
Her fingers stroked over the image lovingly.  
  
Such was the case here.  
  
They were twined innocently together on the bed, Keisuke's head pillowed on his aniki's chest, Ryousuke's fingers woven through his otouto's spiky hair. Neither of them was smiling, but they shared a look of unconscious, unfettered _contentment_ she did not see in them at any other time.  
  
Even as she had immortalised their moment of serenity, Hisako had found herself beginning to wonder…  
  
Fingers tapped against another image and she chuckled softly. Ryousuke's beloved car.  
  
He'd owned the thing barely three days, then; it had been a gift – admittedly, probably an overly-generous one – from his ecstatic parents when they had learned he'd been accepted to study Medicine. Both the boys had simply spent the first day **_staring_** at it in awe, veritable trails of drool trickling down their chins.  
  
Then Keisuke had come up with the questionably brilliant idea of replicating the pose from the photo they'd taken with Souichirou's new car, almost ten years before. Hisako had nearly dropped her camera in shock when her reserved elder son had agreed to it.  
  
(It shouldn't have been that much of a surprise, really; however much he worshipped his aniki, Keisuke undeniably had him wrapped around his little finger.)  
  
So there they sat, Keisuke smiling his evil, toe-curling grin, perched on the hood with his aniki's arms around his waist, knees at his sides and chin on his shoulder. She'd felt absolutely wretched at the time for even _thinking_ it, but it had occurred to her that Ryousuke looked entirely too comfortable with having his otouto between his thighs.  
  
It was at this point that she reached behind the picture and pulled out another – the most precious of her collection. She was not supposed to have this picture: in fact, she'd stolen it from its hiding place in Ryousuke's bedroom and had a duplicate made to replace it, but it was a memento of a party of her sons' lives she would never be able to openly acknowledge, an intimate secret she jealously guarded for them.  
  
It had been taken within the last few months – she knew neither when nor where, nor did she particularly care – and it contained the irrefutable proof of all her suspicions.  
  
The room was dark, dimly backlit, and the camera was obviously perched on a tripod of some kind. She could see nothing below waist level – for which she was profoundly grateful; there were some things a mother, no matter how curious, did not need to see her children doing. However, what she _could_ see left entirely too little… or perhaps too much… to the imagination.  
  
Ryousuke was standing behind his otouto, pressed intimately against him; his body language was a strangely natural juxtaposition of possessiveness and tenderness. Neither he nor Keisuke was clothed above the waist – it was highly unlikely that they were clad below it. Ryousuke's head was bowed into the juncture between his brother's neck and shoulder; she could not tell whether he was suckling at or biting the reddened skin beneath his lips, but a flash of even whiteness suggested the latter.  
  
Whichever it was, Keisuke was certainly enjoying it.  
  
His head was flung back, disordered hair brushing in pale contrast against his aniki's darker locks; his cheeks were flushed and his face a portrait of breathless ecstasy. He leant heavily against Ryousuke for support.  
  
Ryousuke's eyes flashed with dangerous possessiveness.  
  
One of his hands was wrapped tightly around Keisuke's midsection; Keisuke's arm rested atop it and their fingers were closely entwined. It was touching, really: the one point of obvious, genuine affection in a highly sexually charged situation. Nonetheless, it typified them – their devotion to one another spilled over into everything they did, so it was no surprise that it should be present here. Their other arms also rested together, trailing diagonally down Keisuke's body and out of the frame. Hisako could not see what they were doing, but the expression on Keisuke's face was more than suggestion enough.  
  
Which was not something she needed to think about. She would keep their secret, and gladly, but there were certain aspects of their relationship she preferred not to dwell on.  
  
A door banged closed elsewhere in the house and her younger son yelled out a cheerful _"Tadaima!"_  
  
Hisako slipped the photograph back into its hiding place: it was time she stopped poking her nose into things which didn't concern her and started putting her effort into creating new memories, new images to immortalise in the precious pages of her treasured albums. She was almost tempted to hunt out her camera…  
  
_"Okaeri."_

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Owari...


End file.
